Kindred

The study of history is invaluable in gaining an understanding of the events and forces, which shaped the psyche of entire nations, cultures, and races. The past, therefore, shapes the present and is likely to continue shaping the future as well, unless past issues that negatively affect the present are changed. Indeed, it is this understanding of human psychology that has led to the psychiatric profession using techniques of regression on patients. Regression is performed in the hope that revisiting the past will allow cleansing of complexes by facilitating a change in perspective through the deployment of present day understanding. Similarly, by creating a time passage between the present and the past, Butler's Kindred regresses twentieth century America to the days of slavery in antebellum Maryland, and thereby facilitates a change in perspective and deeper appreciation of the meaning of freedom.

Butler's intent to explore the finer nuances of...
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